(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a data entry restriction program and method for determining whether to accept or reject structured documents, and more particularly, to a data entry restriction program and method for determining whether to accept or reject structured documents with great flexibility.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Structured documents may be used to exchange information over the Internet. Using structured documents is an easy way to process elements in the documents because their structure can be analyzed at the time of reception. For example, character strings in prescribed items can be registered in databases easily.
Some structured documents are in general-purpose formats with great flexibility. In many situations, such structured documents are employed as data formats acceptable by processing systems because of easy data creation. Specifically, Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and extensible Markup Language (XML), which are generally used, have an advantage that clients can create data easily. In addition, these have another advantage that processing system sides can analyze data easily by using generally-distributed analysis modules.
By the way, with the recent development of the Internet, more systems can accept data of general-purpose formats with great flexibility over the Internet. Specifically, this trend for the XML is strong. For example, in order to communicate secure electronic documents, systems to create the documents in XML have been proposed (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-91649).